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Actually, he's Chaotic Stupid. What is going on is unsettling to me and I think he has only a matter of time before the other players turn on him.
Sins so far:
* Attacked, killed, and ate a tax collector from the Duchy of Urnst (we are playing in Greyhawk).
* Saved a band of psionic gorillas from cholera.
* Impersonated another priest.
He is a priest of Incabulos, and he does a lot of naughty things. In real life, he is training to be a nurse. The player doesn't like the alignment system. This is the first time I had a chaotic evil character in the party and I could use some advice.
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The alignment is not the real issue here. For what you're telling, the player is showing also a lack of consistence in playing his character and also a lack of commitment with his character's beliefs.
I have a few questions:
Is he being subtle? I don't see that bekng a cannibal is an instant «no» (one of the most civil and charming PCs in my WotW campaign is also a cannibal), but if he does it in a way that causes trouble to the party, he should be roleplaying it in another way. (Our cannibal guy only eats worthy adversaries and only if they are no longer useful to the party).
Is his concept clashing too much with the other party members? Is he trying to fit the party or does he actively seek to clash with them? If he is an integrated member of the party and causes no harm, no problem. If you foresee a lot of unwanted conflict you should feel free to ask him to tone down a bit his behaviour or to play a different character.
What does he think that CE alignment means? Some players think that a CE character has to cause constant conflict and destruction in order to do a good roleplaying. That a CE will often do whatever pleases him and doesn't have an issue with destroying or betraying it doesn't mean that he wouldn't enjoy having other people around and doesn't want to have everybody against him. Being chaotic doesn't mean you have to get your character killed because of stupidity.
Talk to your player of your concerns and give him a few guidelines on how you think he could roleplay his character in a more sensible and less disruptive way. See if he is willing to do so. If he is, give him a second chance with his PC. If he keeps being disruptive make him go for a different PC and make him know that his new PC will have to fit the rest of the group and the story better.
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Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeah.
Nothing really wrong with playing chaotic evil, you just have to do it so the party will reasonably accept you.
That... is not what your player is doing.
Saving creatures from a disease is evil?
Ummm well depends on what you mean by "evil". Might not be D&D evil but for a priest of Incabulos (an evil deity who likes spreading disease) it might not be the brightest move and require an Atonement spell lest he get struck by something fairly hideous himself by his own deity.
Yyyyyyyyyyyeah, OilHorse is correct, it's not evil by any definition.
It may be frowned upon by a monstrously evil entity invested in making people suffer, but that's just a jerk you should ignore, even and especially if it's your patron.
It may be super dangerous, though. In that case, I recommend getting a bigger, better patron...
... but that aside, again, the character is just being dumb and quasi-random (note: the character, not the player).
Frankly, unless that PC really brings something incredible to the team, either the character is going to get destroyed by his own actions (either from PCs just not being able to countenance it anymore, or NPCs doing something, or just trying the wrong stunt to pull), or destroyed by bad guys as he just tries to do it himself in some ill-advised stunt for the sake of anarchy.
If everyone's having fun, no big deal. If he starts bothering the other players... then you've a problem on your hands, and it is best handled out-of-game.
That said, you might privately keep an alignment system (so you know how it works in-game for everyone else), but find that he likes the Loyalty system better, from Pathfinder Unchained.
One thing we did for a game was have a character:
- craft a code of conduct (also, also, also, aslo-nevermind to define how the character must act to be in accordance with their own belief system
- craft an oath or vow to define what the character felt was important to accomplish
- craft an order (also samurai) to determine what kind of education and philosophy the character had to become what they are
- choose a sin to "specialize" in (primary weakness) as well as two to be free of (primary strength); the reverse, if the character was evil (two sins to perform, one to disdain); and one-or-two to prefer and one-or-two to overcome, if neutral
All of this was compared to the Loyalty system (we didn't end up using that system, but we thought about it, at the time) and the Alignment system.
We based all of this off the official stuff, just in case it came up.
These are all kind of stand-in terms: a code of conduct won't cause you to fall (unless your class says it does), an oath or vow doesn't give you specialization (unless your class says it does), an order doesn't give you special power (unless your class says it does), and sin specialties don't give you magic (unless you take that kind of specialization as a wizard).
There was pretty solid amount of character development and depth that could be gathered from those four cited pieces of information: in how those four complimented and contrasted and fought against and reinforced each other in various ways.
You could get him to do that to give some kind of coherent focus for his character.
Or you could drop primal magic plus rod of wonder on him and see how that works out. Or maybe drop a couple of presents just to show exactly how much you like what his character is doing, you know?
(But if he tries to push the problems off on other PCs, make sure they've a way out of it, and he gets his comeuppance*.)
*
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Good post, TL.
Thanks for crashing my cell phone too! (Actually my fault for opening all the links at once. Must have seen it coming).
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I don't get it.
* Attacked, killed, and ate a tax collector from the Duchy of Urnst (we are playing in Greyhawk).
This is not an unreasonable thing for a Chaotic Evil character to do. If other party members can't let this kind of thing slide, that's understandable, but then the party can't be a party as is. The founding assumption of any gaming group/adventuring party, usually unspoken because it ought to be completely intuitive, is that PCs won't try to kill or ostracize other PCs, and unless they're ready to switch to a different character, will find some reason for not doing so in the event of a personality/morality clash, at least for the duration of the campaign.
* Saved a band of psionic gorillas from cholera.
As previously asked: How is this bad??? Considering the title of this thread sets us up to expect complaints about Chaotic Evil PCs, it seems incongruous that you'd complain because he isn't always just eating tax collectors.
* Impersonated another priest.
Hell, some Neutral Good characters would do this under the right circumstances - the Disguise skill is there for a reason!
If these are his worst "sins," he is playing a very reasonable (and not necessarily stupid) Chaotic Evil character - as a matter of fact, he sounds like fun!
There seems to be a pernicious and aggressive culture of dourness going around in gaming right now; wacky characters and those who play them are reflexively persecuted. I don't understand it, and I like it even less.
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Yes, I'd like to hear a bit more about this character before judging.
Anyway, the character might be a well played one and still not fit into the group. I can see how a character like this might be welcome to my WotW or S&S game but wouldn't fit many campaigns I GMed/played before. And the players are mostly the same, but not the PCs.
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Everything should have consequences if he plays in a non clever and problematic way. But if he plays wise and in a non disruptive way, adding consequences for just being evil doesn't seem fair.
I.e. if he just goes wild and kills people leaving a trail of blood wherever he goes he should get consequences. If he just makes a person disappear subtely and covers his trails in a good way, not causing any trouble to the party or to the story, and doesn't bother other party members, let him do as long as it's good roleplaying.
Of course, there are things that go just too far to avoid consequences, but it's a different thing punishing a character for his behaviour than adding logic consequences to help further the ongoing story. Some consequences are fun to play, others feel like just the GM punishing the character.
Everything has to have consequences.
But too many tend to use the word «consequences» as a synonim for «karmic punishment».
I'm afraid that I've fallen to that error myself in my last post.
Well, I tend to favor coherence above all. I never liked to randomly punish a player. Until recently I used to be too soft with my consequences, but I ended learning to be fair instead of just too forgiving.
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I just want to know the whole killed the tax collector and ate him story.
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Sounds like the player is basically being a grade A arse. As others have said playing evil characters is fine, but the player still has to play a cooperative group game that should be fun for all. If the rest of the group are fed up with his in-game antics tell him OOC that he needs to either change his in-game behaviour of he will be ejected. If the group are happy with it, or you don't want to take that route then you will need to demonstrate that actions have consequences in-game, just as they do in real-life.
The Duchy of Urnst is a strongly good society that tends towards law and was relatively unscathed by the wars. I imagine that the law will be strongly enforced when it comes to the disappearance of one of the Duke's tax collectors. It is also something the Thieves Guild would take a dim view of, as it brings too much attention to their activities. The state and the underworld will therefore be hunting him.
Secondly, Clerics that grossly violate their code of conduct become ex-clerics.
Clerics of Incabulos are secretive and paranoid. Justifiably fearing persecution by good and evil folk, they rarely reveal themselves for what they are except in times of great despair when they can fan the emotions of the suffering. Greater clerics use threats and this state of fear to encourage junior members to maintain secrecy. They enjoy torturing others, inflicting disease, and spreading blight. They travel to find new locations or people to infect, escape those who would destroy them, or find strange lands where exotic diseases can be found.
It would appear that by curing the gorillas of disease, he has grossly violated the code of conduct of a Cleric of the Greater God of Plagues and should now be an ex-cleric. Furthermore his actions are likely to have brought attention to himself, either from the state, the underworld or drawn the ire of the impersonated cleric's church. His superiors are likely to be very unhappy that he has been unable to maintain his secrecy. Whether it is a second gross violation is less clear cut, but it is certainly grounds for punishment from his own church.
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I just want to say one thing about consequences: moderation is key. If the PC eats a guy, try to resist the temptation of turning the whole plot into a story about the revenge of the family of the devoured. If the PC grossly violates the tenets of his fate, don't drag the rest of the group into his epic redemption arc.
Having the spotlight focused in the disrupting player when the rest of the group are trying to get back to the plot can be really frustrating. I have seen a campaing derailed beyond recognition because of this.
When adding consequences I always try to make everything focused in the main story, so it is not derailed or the character gains too much spotlight.
In the case of wanting to show the family plotting revenge against him, I'd change an encounter so one or two of the enemies belong to the family of the victim and have joined the baddies to avenge their beloved one death. The encounter is the same, but some of the enemies will always attack the offender PC because it is a personal thing to them.
The PC will know what happened but he doesn't get extra gaming time, and the GM hasn't had to change the storyline to fit the consequences.
A seek of redemption? Maybe it involves some task or personal sacrifice that is assigned to the PC in a city they are visiting anyway and fulfilled while doing a quest that is going to be done by the whole group.
With some thought by the GM most consequences can be part of the main plot instead of time consuming side quests that reward the player with more gaming time and a personalized quest that other PCs don't have.
How to deal with a CE pc?
well, it depends...are his/her actions a burden upon the other pc's to such a degree that they are having less fun then they would have without, that particular pc?
If yes then you talk things over, with both the problem player and the other players, to come to some sort of adjustment or replacement of the problem pc, that hopefully would make everyone happy.
As for the actions themselves, I can't really say if they are over the top, since that very much depends on a combination of the players play-styles, campaigns and settings* overall mood.
Is it epic high fantasy (ie black/white), gritty fantasy (shades of gray) or pure grim-dark (black/blacker/blackest)?
I mean, I've played in a gritty campaign were my LN** fighter both killed a tax collector and impersonate a priest.
* Greyhawk isn't really a setting that I'm familiar with.
** this character was played under auspice of a GM who felt that alignment was secondary to consistent characterization, ie personality.
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Saving creatures from a disease is evil?Ummm well depends on what you mean by "evil". Might not be D&D evil but for a priest of Incabulos (an evil deity who likes spreading disease) it might not be the brightest move and require an Atonement spell lest he get struck by something fairly hideous himself by his own deity.
It isn't evil though. Heretical to his God sure, but not evil.
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Give him the ghoul corruption?
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Saving creatures from a disease is evil?
Its the way he did it. The creatures left the castle and he took it over because the source of water was foul. He convinced the psionic gorillas to leave, going back to Hepmonaland.
He wanted to say that he had a good side.
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I just want to know the whole killed the tax collector and ate him story.
I set up a side trek where the "evil" tax collector was collecting taxes from a poor family. The scene came out of Zorro: The Gay Blade. I wanted to know how the party would react, and the priest reacted in an unbelievable way. He killed the tax collector and ate him. I wasn't happy with the result and warned the player that there will be repercussions deeper into the campaign. Since they are in the Duchy of Urnst:
* I figure the peasants will fear him for his evil (stupid) deed.* The Duke will want to capture the priest and try him for murder.
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Did he do all that in public?
That's looking for a lot of trouble!
At least we know the PC has a heart deep inside. We don't know if it's his or the tax collector's but he has.
Sorry for the bad pun.
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The specifics of what the player and character are doing are probably less important than the disruption it is causing to the game, if that is whats happening. RPGs are an outlet where we get to step away from real life for a while. It's important for those involved to have fun but the fun of one person shouldn't be put above the fun of the group.
If this character existing in real life, would he go around needing to exemplify his alignment and deity at every opportunity? Certainly most people would not want anything to do with him, and other people would endeavor to stop him. He would end up dead or imprisoned. Not all players can pull of evil alignments, and thats a fact. You'll have to see how this continues. Maybe he'll settle down once he gets the chance to destroy the lives of some more NPCs. Maybe he's not cut out to play an evil character.
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I am of the firm belief that all alignments are playable. However, not all alignments are playable by all people, and not all players are mature enough to judge a character by their actions and not by the alignment on their sheet.
The specific problem of Chaotic Evil is that CE is the most selfish alignment possible. It is the combination of Individualism with Negativity, and the result is an alignment that leans towards self-centered badness. And that's a very problematic thing to have with a player in a team oriented game.
Two ways to deal with this for the CE character. One is to have a player that knows what he's doing and keeps his excesses in check. The second is to have an overwhelming need for the CE character to work with the team if he wants to be able to survive to indulge his glee in the future. A Geas, quite frankly, works well enough here. I don't normally use such heavy handed methods, but if I had a player I didn't trust who wanted to play a CE character, I'd explain the challenges, and then explain that to get around these challenges the easiest way is to put a hefty Geas on the character- if the player didn't agree, we need to seriously brainstorm a better way, or else play something else.
That still doesn't solve the fact that a CE character can be on his best behavior, and if the other players see the sheet they may still interpret his actions in the most negative way possible, even when they do good things. I've seen this happen, and it is by far the most killer to having a group with an Evil character work together. At that point, the only thing you can do is try to open up communication all around and hope that your players are mature enough to recognize they aren't being fair.
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The specifics of what the player and character are doing are probably less important than the disruption it is causing to the game, if that is whats happening. RPGs are an outlet where we get to step away from real life for a while. It's important for those involved to have fun but the fun of one person shouldn't be put above the fun of the group.
If this character existing in real life, would he go around needing to exemplify his alignment and deity at every opportunity? Certainly most people would not want anything to do with him, and other people would endeavor to stop him. He would end up dead or imprisoned. Not all players can pull of evil alignments, and thats a fact. You'll have to see how this continues. Maybe he'll settle down once he gets the chance to destroy the lives of some more NPCs. Maybe he's not cut out to play an evil character.
I'm tempted to look into the Variant systems to alignment in Pathfinder Unchained. See how the PCs would react to having a code of honor or something like that. But I don't think that will solve the problem.
But I don't think that will solve the problem.Are you certain there really is one? You allowed a Chaotic Evil character; that clearly implies that Chaotic Evil behavior should be an at least somewhat viable route in your campaign.
I considered that, even assumed that at one time. I am looking into alternatives to alignment.
But one of my other players wants to challenge his dominating chaos with lawful behavior. It would give balance to the party, he believes.
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But one of my other players wants to challenge his dominating chaos with lawful behavior. It would give balance to the party, he believes.
I guess it depends on what he means by that. Again, as long as they have the sense, as players, not to go as far as killing or ostracizing each other, it could still work out. In fact, if they're talented roleplayers, it could even work out well - think of The Odd Couple and all the silly "personality-clash buddy-cops" movies.
The potential threat here is not from the alignment system, but inept players.
By the way, speaking of meddling with the alignment system, this is kind of interesting.
Interesting I'm not full CE i'm a soft CE or soft w/e. Id probably need a working definition for social. The other ones I get the idea.
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Playing evil in a good campaign can be very fun, especially if you make it part of the drama.
I played a Neutral Evil, Dexter-inspired cleric of Oghma (Faerun campaign; Knowledge & Trickery domains) who had been torturing and murdering people since he was a youth. He hates himself for his "hunger" to kill, yet can't contain his rage when he sees badguys prey on the innocent, or apathetic people allow evil to thrive. So he kidnaps, interrogates, tortures and kills violent criminals and those who choose to help or ignore them (including those "innocents" who won't cooperate with the investigation). On the battlefield or on the road, he enjoys setting up situations where he is "forced" to kill prisoners "in self defense."
My buddy played the cleric's Lawful Good brother (a wizard, transmuter) who was in denial of the clues he's seen over the years, and as a result has been covering for his brother's actions without realizing it (oh the irony).
The party functioned primarily as investigators, hunting powerful and/or elusive badguy NPCs & bandits of the area. But they also did security work (bodyguards) and civil defense (go into the hills and crush the troll raiders that have been acting up).
A massive part of the fun for the campaign was playing cat and mouse, trying to find out who this serial killer is, that always seems one step ahead of them. The GM was very helpful in playing this out, and my buddy and I were constantly conspiring between games, laughing about how his wizard would "accidentally" misinterpret clues, or second-guess what he sees, or even sabotage evidence when it came to hunting the most elusive serial killer, his own brother.
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Playing evil in a good campaign can be very fun, especially if you make it part of the drama.
He's certainly doing that, I can tell you.
I actually got a good laugh out of the killing and eating a tax collector.
Did he eat him raw, which would be barbaric, just roast and eat him, which is more acceptable, or sautee him in butter with garlic and black pepper, which is admirably refined?
Seriously if you didn't want a PC acting like this, you know, chaotic and evil, you probably should have disallowed the character.
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The biggest issue is "all acts have consequences". If the player has a decent INT remind him of that. If a good INT, mention what some of those consequences might be.
Then let him figure out a way to escape those consequences while you as the GM figure out ways to make him suffer for his actions.
Your example of the tax collector is something that should have a BIG consequence. Government officials that deal with money that end up dead (or disappeared) brings serious investigations. Someone should have a wanted poster out on them very soon with a hefty reward for being turned in.
No, just the opposite. See, giving him the spotlight like this is a reward for acting up. It's exactly what he wants.
Just sit down with him and tell him "Look, D&D is a game, and games are supposed to be Fun- even for me, the DM. I want to run a heroic type game. Your acts dont fit in. Either modify your Pcs behavior or bring in a new one."
Or just announce a new house rule "No Evils".
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I read an article yesterday about a study stating that humans aren't very nutritious.
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Tammy didn't know tax collectors were edible.
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I read an article yesterday about a study stating that humans aren't very nutritious.
More or less than an unicorn?
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Come on, human? Definitely less.
Saving creatures from a disease is evil?
Well, what does OP mean by "saved"? If he cured them, that's pretty antithetical of an evil character, but if he simply made them immune to the symptoms and thus still capable of spreading the disease, he'd be pretty g~@%#@n evil. Either way, it does not paint him in a good light.
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Saving creatures from a disease is evil?Its the way he did it. The creatures left the castle and he took it over because the source of water was foul. He convinced the psionic gorillas to leave, going back to Hepmonaland.
He wanted to say that he had a good side.
Maybe I am missing something because I just don't correlate saving someone with evil.
And if I get the story right, convincing them of leaving so that he could take over a castle with a diseased water source is not really "saving" them